In order to purchase these tickets in installments, you'll need an Eventbrite account. Log in or sign up for a free account to continue.If you live and drink in a major city, you have probably encountered wine on tap, and the proliferation of growlers, those glass hillbilly jugs that enable you to take draft beer from a bar or liquor store to your home. But unless you live in Greenville, S.C., you may not have met the lovechild of those two trends: the wine growler. Last week, the Community Tap, a liquor shop in Greenville that sells wine and craft beer, dedicated one of its taps to take-away wine. The principle is the same as with beer growlers. You purchase a 32-ounce or 64-ounce vessel and fill it up with the keg wine on tap. “One of the reasons that we wanted to start the store was we wanted to do beer growlers,” said the co-owner Ed Buffington, who opened Community Tap last July and now has 10 taps devoted to American microbrews and some European beers. “There weren’t too many people doing it in South Carolina.”

A visit from Dan Donahoe from Silvertap wines in California, which specializes in tank wine, prompted Mr. Buffington to think beyond beer. “I’ve been doing this for a long time,” said Mr. Donahoe, whose clients are almost all restaurants. “From my experience, they are the only place doing wine in growlers retail. A lot of people have wine on tap. I’m in discussions with very large grocery stores about it. But nobody’s really pulled the trigger and done it until they did.” (In recent years, wine growlers have cropped up in tasting rooms in places like California, Michigan and Pennsylvania.) The Community Tap’s debut growler wine is Silvertap’s 2008 cabernet sauvignon. Both Mr. Donohue and Mr. Buffington see two main advantages to growler wine: a smaller carbon footprint and a smaller tab. A 32-ounce growler of Silvertap cab goes for $16.99, the same cost of the wine in a 750-milliliter bottle. “That’s 25 percent more wine at the same price,” Mr. Buffington said.

Charles Bieler, a founder of the New York-based keg wine company the Gotham Project is hoping wine growlers can find their way to New York, if Albany can be made to see the light. “Every state has a different set of laws,” Mr. Bieler said. “From a retail point of view, this is something we’ve been looking into. There’s a law that says, with wine, it’s illegal. But it’s never been challenged.” “I know a lot of retailers in the city who would jump on it in a second,” he added.Time Out NY “Your Perfect Brunch” NY Daily News “Vesta Trattoria offers subtle innovation” The Village Voice “Little Baby Jesus Cake” The Village Voice “The 10 Best Restaurants in Astoria” New York Magazine “Drink Wine on Tap in Astoria” The Gothamist “Still Got It: Vesta Trattoria & Wine Bar” Edible Queens “Loqavores: Winter at Vesta” NY Post “I’d tap that!” NY Daily News City’s largest rooftop farm, Brooklyn Grange

Time Out NY “Best food in Astoria, Queens” The Village Voice “Our 10 Best: NYC Wine Bars” Joey in Astoria “…I think it’s one of the best brunches I’ve had in NYC.” Like many storefronts in our beloved East Village, The Immigrant occupies a former tenement space. It's cozy - just the way we like it.best wine list format There's seating for 11 at the bar and an additional 20 or so in back. wine gift sets with free shippingWe can comfortably accommodate a group of 10 and parties up to 30.best red wine salad dressing recipe We are located in New York's East Village. Open 5pm - 2am View in Google Maps Does anybody have any resolutions they want to share? I used to be super gung-ho about and resolutions, but now I'm just trying to .

And so far, they're pretty simple: eat well (I am turning The Big Three Zero this year and my metabolism and skin elasticity is not what it once was), save money for this SUPERTOPSECRETBIGDEALWHYAMIEVENTALKINGABOUTTHISAGAIN long-term kindasortamaybe blog-related project (and no, it's not a book, sorry guys), explore New York as much as I can, and travel to all the places that's closer to the East Coast than the West Coast. I realize those last two are in direct opposition to the first one, but whatever. I know that the New Year is all about forward thinking (especially January), but for me, the end of the year really came up fast. I'm still recovering and reeling from it. There were so many things that seemed to spring out of nowhere and hit all of us (or maybe just me?) by surprise. For starters, there was and . On the lighter side of things, there were also rumors of , the of , and . Yes, red wine hot chocolate. Apparently it's a thing. It sounds gross, but after trying a homemade red wine and Coca-Cola cocktail* in England several years ago and finding it to be tolerable, if actually tasty once you get over the initial shock factor of the flavor combos, I was up for giving red wine and hot chocolate a shot together.

The trick is to use mulling spices like cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and ginger in addition to the red wine. The spices make the chocolate taste like winter, but with an added richness and unique silkiness from the red wine. Inspired by New York restaurant and (see: , , , and ), we went a little crazy with toppings and added New York style cookies (specifically, Italian Rainbow and black-and-white deli cookies) and to the standard marshmallow and whipped cream hot chocolate toppings. (inspired by The New York Times and Black Tap, for the most part) For the Red Wine Hot Chocolate Black Tap Milkshakes: Using a vegetable peeler, remove the zest from 1 medium orange in wide strips, avoiding the white pith. Place the zest in a medium saucepan. Add 2 cups dry red wine, 2 whole cloves, 2 cardamom pods, 1 cinnamon stick, a pinch of all spice, a pinch of black pepper, and a pinch of ground nutmeg, giving the ingredients a good whisk to combine. Place the stovetop's lowest heat setting for about 20 minutes, just enough to infuse the red wine with all the spices' flavor.

Stir every so often. About halfway through the red wine's mulling time, make the hot chocolate component. Place 12 ounces finely chopped chocolate in a large mason jar, and set aside. In a medium saucepan, combine 1 cup heavy cream and 1 cup whole milk. Place on medium-high heat and warm until just about ready to boil, and immediately remove from heat and pour over the chopped chocolate in the mason jar. Let sit for at least 5 to 10 minutes, before whisking to dissolve the chocolate completely. Seal the lid tightly on the mason jar, and give the mixture a good shake if that helps! Return to the red wine mixture. Remove from heat and use a fine-mesh sieve to strain the spices out from the mixture and into a liquid measuring cup, discarding the solids in the sieve. Pour 1 cup of the strained red wine mixture into the mason jar containing the chocolate mixture. Seal the lid tightly on the mason jar, and give the mixture a good shake to combine the red wine and chocolate mixtures together.